2009 building logs

December 2009 Furniture, plumbing and wiring

That heading is not going to change for months as I slowly move one room at a time around the boat fitting the internal furniture. I am not able to just finish a room and move on as I originally thought for 2 reasons, boredom (I get itchy feet to do something different after a while on one job) and efficiency, for example some furniture is the same in both hulls just mirrored and whilst the first hull shows me how to do something I move to the second whilst the memory is still fresh so I can replicate it easily. But there are minor differences in each hull such as where the sumps are and these must be completed before the soles can be glassed down which of course must be done before furniture can be built in over it. I have called the theme of this and the last couple of months furniture, plumbing and wiring, but not much, well none, plumbing and wiring had been done. I have been thinking about where it will go all the while but not come to any furniture yet where it will cross so nothing has been done yet in this regard, but it is rapidly approaching.

Dec 2 Pureseal 2 years old

It is amazing how fast time slips by whilst building this boat. Already I have been working over 4 years and it is now 2 years since I put the second Pureseal test plate in the water. And It is still performing as well as I would expect it to. I had a visitor who had followed my progress over the years about the middle of November and I showed him the panel and it was there as usual covered with algae about the amount 2 and a half months would usually produce. Then a week later we had another big southerly storm and I thought nothing of it at the time. Then today when I went to check on the panel the crossbeam on the jetty it is tied to was gone. Blown away but the water surge of the storm. There was some rope and fishing line wrapped around the pylon so I pulled it up and tangled in amongst it was what was left of the beam and my test panel. It was black, which it had never been before, no doubt because it was lying on the bottom and for the first time there were tiny shellfish attached to one side. Not only were they tiny but very easily pushed off with my finger.

Being on the bottom changed the growth from green to black, I dont expect to see that normally and probably would not if the beam had not broken. I used my finger to remove most of the algae and then finished the job with a cloth. It cleaned up as well as it usually does, it seems to be getting more and more pock marked and scared as time goes on, which I thing is to be expected, it does not seem to have any detrimental effect on performance other making the panel just a little harder to clean, but I am still satisfied that it is working well enough that if it were on my boat I would not be thinking it needed to be reapplied or removed yet.

Dec 3/4 Nine Lives launched.

Not much work was done to my boat last weekend because of the combination of very hot weather and last minute work that I helped out doing on Nine Lives. I also spent time during the week finishing a variety of small jobs on Nine Lives, such as glassing in a rudder brace bulkhead and attaching the chainplates before the truck arrived on Thursday to load her up. We spent a lot of Tuesday getting it out of the shed and pushed around into place. Getting it out was easy, as straight run out but maneuvering it around to where we wanted to park it ready for the low loader to take it to the water took about 4 hours. I needed to keep working (my job) in between as well. Fortunately I had my laptop with me at the shed and was able to get the work I had to do done in between changing directions on the piano moving wheels each time we want to move the boat in a different direction. We also needed to pull it with a block and a car because it was just too heavy to push.

It was a great exercise seeing Nine Lives removed and launched. It showed me how mine will come out. My boat is a half a meter wider so the doorway will need opening that much more, but is not very difficult, and I also saw how impractical the piano moving wheels are, they only go one direction which adds a huge amount of difficulty to moving the boat. I will either have dolly wheels under the cradles that allow unidirectional movement or I will have a dolly made that suspends the boat from the bridgedeck to achieve the same thing. I am leaning toward making the cradles strong enough to take decent rotating wheels at this stage, but I dont have to worry about that for a year or so.

Dec 5 Port robe and bedroom hull-side cupboards

So finally back on my own build I finished the port forward bedroom hull-side (outboard) cabinet is finished.  I coated the shelves with white epoxy and then glassed the top on. I had some work to do on the top, I had to finish shaping the front edge which I had filled during the week after having cut the shape also during the week. I also made a short curved top piece to join (on the other side of the bulkhead) the bedroom top to the robe top. I experimented with a number of different shaped curves and stepped back to see what it looked like, before reshaping it a couple of times until I settled on the shape that I both liked the look of and worked in that a door would open to it and be open enough to get into the room effectively.

On a side note I am a fan of the idea of a door should open into the room (so from a hall or larger room into the next room) not the other way around, in other words to enter a room you push the door into the room and to exit you pull the door. This is not always practical, for example in a small ensuite or closet there is not enough room to back away inside the room far enough to pull the door open past you to get out. There is enough room in the ensuite for the door to open into it and to open it again from inside it but there is not in the robe. However there is no need to have the door closed and be inside the robe so this wont be an issue and I am also a fan of symmetry wherever possible so I want the doors in each hull to open the same way, so whichever way I go I have to do on both hulls.

Dec 6 Sumps.

In order to install furniture the soles below them must be glassed down, but in order for them to be glassed down any under-sole work needs to be completed, as it was in the ensuite (I had some plumbing to install first) and in the robe and port bedroom as there was nothing needed under it. I still have some work to do in the starboard sump. I have decided that I want to use the full width of the hull as the sump but I want to retain the web for hull strength. The web will either need limber holes to or I need a false bottom in the sump. I settled for the latter, as this also allows me to direct the flow to one corner (rear inside) where the pump will be fitted and in doing so minimize the water that sloshes around in there after the pump shuts off as it never gets all of it.

First I cut the middle of the middle dividing web out leaving just the front and rear edges to act as a base for the top. I then cut a piece of 5mm ply to size and shape including cutting some slots in it to accommodate the part of the web I left in. It needed some trimming here and there to fit exactly how I wanted. I then glued some strips of duflex under where the sump base would sit to act as a base for the glue to pool in and set it out so that the aft inside corner was lower than the other 3 corners. I then glassed both sides of the panel and then had a break for lunch.

After lunch, the glued strips and the glassing wasn't dry yet so I started work on the next under sole section that I want to get done so I can glue and glass the next sole down and start on the next section of furniture, the section in the port hull that includes the dagger case and the stairs. On the forward side of where the bathroom wall is going to be there will be nothing under the sole so it can go down, behind it, in the bathroom there will need to be some plumbing. The only thing that I want under the sole is a solid timber beam to run from the back of the dagger case to the next bulkhead.

I am paranoid about ever hitting anything with my daggers down and the dagger acting like a knife and tearing the back of my boat apart so when creating the cases I made them way stronger than the plans suggest. I used19mm duracore instead of the 13mm and  25mm ply for the back edge, and then wrapped the bottom rear half and top front half of the case in 3 layers of uni glass. They are somewhat heavier than they otherwise would be but I feel much better about them ever being able to be torn open by the daggerboard. And to finish off the structure I have had it in my mind to run a timber beam along the bottom of the boat to the next bulkhead just to spread the load bearing out a little more. Probably never even touch the daggers on anything but I am very much in the safe rather than sorry camp.

I cut the beam to length, then cut the slots in the web. Easy. I will glue a ply pad to the bulkhead to spread the load out over a larger area of the bulkhead to avoid point loads. All of this is hidden under the sole, although the back section of this area will be the port sump so the rear part of the beam will need to be sheathed (glassed) or epoxy coated to stop moisture from creeping inside the timber and rotting it.

I will also need to give the inside of both sumps a coat of the white epoxy, probably 2 coats, this not only seals it, but it makes it easy to wipe clean.

After an exiting week it was good to get back onto my own build and make some progress.

Dec 11 Sumps lid.

I have been experimenting with an idea that Dennis gave me for a lid for my sumps. Neither sump is directly inside the shower. But sumps have pumps in them and must be accessible so that if they break down they can be easily replaced, and will also need to be cleaned on a regular basis so the easier they are to access the better. I have 8" (200mm) inspection ports but I dont fancy having to do keyhole surgery through a 200mm aperture in order to uninstall and reinstall a pump inside the sump. So I was pondering how I might seal a home made lid when this idea came up.

We have some 30 liter white drums that once carried chlorine in commercial quantities. Dennis was given it to store dry things on board and was told it was procured from the local tip straight off the back of the truck disposing of them. So I contacted some local pool maintenance companies and they dont carry them but they put me onto the company that supplies them with chemicals and sure enough they had hundreds of them and often dispose of them when they have too many and they were happy to give me a few. In fact they gave me 10. I will use 2 for sump lids if they work out how I think they will and 3 or 4 on board to store things I want to ensure stays dry. This will also mean I will have spare lids if they are needed.

The idea is that these lids are screw on. They once held chlorine and as such I assume them to be fairly robust and fairly if not completely watertight when the lid is screwed on. By cutting the top off the drum and gluing that down in the sole the screw lid effectively sealing a wide opening into the sump making maintenance easy. There is even a flat ridge that forms a rim that will screw down with sealant under it to seal the join. The only complication is that the combination of male and female screw thread is about 45mm and I want the top of the lid when closed to be flush with the sole top so that it is imperceptible under the carpet when you walk over it.

To get the top to the correct height I need to glue the plastic lid into a ply surround and then glue (and glass) the surround 30mm below the bottom of the sole via ply side walls 30mm high, so that combined with the 15mm sole thickness the top will be flush. i will also glue a ply pad into the top on the outside to fill the centre and with 2 slots cut in it to aid in opening the lid. There is also a ring inside the lid that I will also fill with ply and attached through the plastic lid to the outer ply. I wont glue these 2 ply pads to the lid, I will just screw them to each other through the plastic lid, that way if I need to replace the lid I can easily switch it out by removing the screws and re screwing them to the new lid.

I cut the hole in the ply base to tightly take the bin top and a bigger hole in the sole to take the lid with clearance all around. I decored the balsa and back filled it so that tomorrow when I get on to making the access port I can sand the filled core to smooth and carry on without having to wait for it to set.

The idea to make this wide access hatch means that getting to the sump pumps and to keep the pumps clean will be much easier. I will have stocking feet over the in pipes to the sump which will filter the water (hair mostly) before it gets into the pumps and these will need to be cleaned on a regular basis, and whilst that would not be too difficult through the smaller port, getting a pump out then back in and secured is much harder through a small port.

Dec 12 Finishing sumps lid.

With the under sole frame for the oversize inspection port that I am making measured out and the aperture cut out of the duflex sole I glued and glassed the ply frame that will house the male screw thread drum top to the underside of the sole. I found the best method of attaching it so that I could be sure that it would hold the weight of someone standing on it was to cut a ply ring about 10mm wide (the width of the rim) and to screw from above through the ply base through the plastic rim of the bin top into the ply ring. With glue (I pre keyed the plastic) and then a cove I glassed it all to from the ply ring down the cove onto the underside of the ply base. The frame was precut to the exact height of the drum top with lid on flush with the top of the sole so I turned it all over and screwed the lid on to be sure that it went on and that no glue that came through from below would set and stop the lid from going on, and then I removed it for a moment to smear glue down into any voids and create a small cove with my finger and screwed the top on again to ensure again that it did, removing it and replacing it a few time before leaving the lid on as it was pulling the entire structure together when screwed down tight. Once the glass had tacked off a little I gave it a coat of white epoxy to seal it.

 

Jake and I also started on the second dingy we cut the parts for more than a year ago. We cut them out of 9mm ply to see if we could make this dingy design even lighter. The ply is harder to keep fair so any weight advantage may be lost when it comes time to fair it by the need for more bog. We wanted to keep to 9mm ply because 16mm ply is not as flexible over the length we are building and wont curve to the design without kerfing. We are using a stitch and glass method. We "stitched the first two ply panels to each other using a pine triangle bead by gluing and screwing the panels into the bead. Once the glue had set from the first panel we remove the screws and glue and screw the second panel to the first. (We got as far as gluing the first 2 panels, the hull inside panels, to the bulkheads last time before Jake lost interest, but he is keen as mustard now) and today we are gluing the hull bottoms to the inside hull sides. Once set we will curve the join so that glass will go around it, run a tape over the join then later we will glass the entire outside and probably the inside of the hulls. More as we go, I am still building my boat, not stopping my build completely like I did when I built the first ones with Warren.

 

It was a not a particularly hot day but was sunny all day and the heat in the shed soon felt like it was a hot day. I managed to work nearly all day but with the dingy work I am only counting 7 hours.

Dec 12 Fitting the dagger case braces.

I am a bit paranoid about hitting something with my daggerboards down and it acting like a knife and cutting a neat slice down the middle of my hull, so I have made the daggerboard cases stronger than the design specs call for. I have used 19mm duflex instead of 13mm, used 25mm ply back to the case instead of 16mm and rapped the outside of the cases with 3 layers of duflex at the bottom rear and top forward face to ensure the dagger could not ever exit the case any way other than up. To finalize this strengthen work I am running cedar planks 60mm x 50mm x the 2020mm from the back of the case to the next bulkhead. I placed 12mm ply pads between the end of the plank and the bulkhead to minimize any point load. I had pre fitted them dry yesterday and today I glued and glassed them into the hull soles. I am not going to resin coat the entire plank as I figure that the inside of the sole is dry and if those planks ever get wet then I have bigger problems than eventual wood rot! I will have a hole in my hull!!

To show how much more convenient this size inspection port is I did a dry fit and had an 8 inch port that I sell, to show the difference in size between it and the port I have made. There is nothing wrong with the ports I sell but being so small I think that trying to maneuver a pump into and out of the sump would have been more difficult. On top of that, most inspection ports sit proud of the surface, these are very low profile but would still need to be recessed about 6mm to be flush. I figure it would have taken me as long as it did to make the ports as it would have to recess the ready made ones.

I also glued and glassed the aft cabin drain pipe into the sole, through each web divider and through the bulkhead into the sump. Once the glass had tacked off a little I gave the inside of the sump a good thick coat of white epoxy so as to be absolutely sure that it was completely sealed and also so that I have a smooth easy wipe surface so that the water moves easily over its surface and is easy to keep clean.

To finish the underside of the sump base I gave it a final light sand to make sure there were no sharp shards of glass to scratch me when I put my hand into the sump. The thick white layer of epoxy covers most of them but here and there a shard still sticks out and a light sand later and smooth as a babies bum (or so I'm told!). I placed the finished sole in place to stop dust from settling in the setting white epoxy in the sole.

I tested the strength of the lid by jumping up and down on it. It didn't budge and the lid is easy to remove with the slots I cut into the ply top that I inserted into the top of the lid to keep it flush with the floor and there is also a pad of ply inside the lid and the 2 are screwed to each other. I wont glue these in though, I will just give the ply a coat of resin, as I may need to switch the lid if it ever shows signs of fatigue.

 

I placed the starboard bedroom outside hull side kickboard in place over the sole in order to ensure that the sump lid would still be easy to open with furniture in place, I placed a timber plank down the inside hull side to replicate where that furniture would be leaving a 500mm path down the hull (the doorways are 500mm wide) to show where they sit in reference to sump. All good. All in all I could not be happier with this little project. I will replicate it for the port sump and also for access through a bulkhead into the well I have forward of the walk in wardrobe in the port hull.

I cant glue the starboard sump lid down yet (and as a result I cannot proceed with the furniture yet). I have purchased 3 auto bilge pumps with built in float switches (1 for each shower sump and a spare, the bilges are dry so they dont have pumps) on eBay in the US (AU$50 each delivered) and have to wait for them to arrive so that I can fit one into the sump before closing it all up. My plan is to figure out some easy release system, perhaps a rubber strap or belt of some kind that will allow me to remove and replace the pump easily for regular cleaning and maintenance.

I also bought 2 water pumps, 17 liters per minute, enough for 4 outlets at 40psi, for $58 each delivered. I will have separate pumps to pump water to each hull. I like redundancy, if one fails not only will I have spares (I will be buying 2 more, 1 for a salt water deck clean, 2 outlets and 1 spare) we can still access water from the other hull depending on which fails before I have to start maintenance work to restore the system, as it may not be convenient to work on it for a little while, during a passage for example.

Finally I also splashed out (poor choice of words!) for a toilet this week. I am going with Lavac vacuum toilets so at some point I will be buying another one. At $1000 each they are about double the cost of a Jabsco electric toilet and triple the cost of a TMC budget toilet, but I am sold on them for 2 reasons. First they have no moving parts, and dont require a macerator (the vacuum action acts like a macerator, that ought to be enough information!) but just as important to me is that they use very much less water than a regular toilet. This is important to me because I am using fresh water not salt. come. I believe fresh water toilets smell much better than salt water and it is one less through hull to worry about. These toilets also come with both an electric pump and a manual pump that are both in line at all times so if I have reduced power capacity I could still manual pump them out. (A total power failure for me would render the toilets inoperable anyway because of the use fresh water in them). 

When all of this plumbing gear arrives (the water pumps are here but waiting on the bilge pumps and toilet) I will be able to finish the plumbing around the boat, or most of it and glass down the rest of the soles and finish the furniture in each hull. I am hoping to use the holiday period coming up to get all of that done or at least most of it. Then will come the wiring.

Dec 20 Main cabin soles in.

With the success of the starboard sump lids I will of course repeat it for the port hull. The port sump needs a large lid even more than the starboard one, because as well as acting as a normal sump I will also fit 2 of my port through hull fittings in the sump. In all there are 5 through hulls in the port hull, I will have a salt water intake and the black water out further back in the hull as well as a separate outfall for the sink as I dont want this emptying into the sump because of the potential for smells and larger waste pieces that usually find their way down the drain in the kitchen and finally the grey out.

It makes very good sense to have potential leak points in the sump where there will be a bilge pump permanently waiting to evacuate any water in the sump. The 2 through hulls in the sump will be the 2 senders for depth and speed/temp/log. I will have a Raymarine multi display chart plotter which will also display depth and the speed log will also add to the data interface to help the autopilot. The GPS tells the plotter the exact location which in turn interfaces with the autopilot and the speed log tells it the water current speed or speed of the boat through the water as opposed to over the ground that the gps tells.

The holding tank outfall points will be above the soles but still below the waterline. I could lead them back (or forward in the case of the black) to the sump but I dont think it is necessary and having above sole visual of the outpoints means I will keep a better watch of them.

I will also be fitting a toilet in the space directly in front of where the sump will be and in front of the toilet will be a wall with a door in it that closes the toilet room. So I have split the sole for fitting separately leaving a little of the sole area below the toilet exposed in case any plumbing needs to come through the under-sole into the sump. The black water out will pass through the sump as I want it below the level of the shower base so that it is completely hidden, so I have left the sole area open for now to that I can plumb it all. The sump cover will have the screw lid fitted as in the starboard hull and will extend to meet the sole already glassed in. I am in the process of making the screw lid as per the starboard one now.

I have also glued and glassed in the main cabin starboard sole. It has some plumbing under it, it has a water hose to send cold water to a small hand basin in the aft bedroom for drinking or brushing teeth so it will be cold only no hot, and of course this basin needs a drain to send the waste to the sump. Fitting the pipe and hose was easy enough but getting the lid on with glue on the web tops (and fortunately I had the dagger brace to glue to also) was quite a job. I tried dry fitting a couple of times and each time I got the sole down I crimped the water hose. I solved this by pulling the hose through as tight as I could and maneuvered the lid down over the drain pipe as I lowered it into place. At one stage I almost gave up and was going to cut the sole in half and fit each part separately but having succeeded to get the top down without kinking the hose I decided I could do it and went for it. I buttered all of the sole top and dagger brace and repeated the same way I had just fitted the sole dry, and it worked without smudging any of the glue off the sole tops or me standing on any of them!

The water pipe enters the sole at the bulkhead corner opposite the dagger case and of course exits just under where the basin will be. I set about wetting out the tapes then coving the joins, filling the gaps (which apart from around the daggercase were very small) as I went, then laying the tapes when the coves were down. At the dagger case in order to fill the gaps without the coving falling thought I cut a small piece of duflex to jam into the gap with glue over it, then finished the coving over the top of it to finish the taping. I also filled the through sole holes that contained the water hose (at both ends) and drain pipe with coving compound to seal the sole and hold the pipes exactly in place firmly.

Then to finish off on Sunday afternoon Jake and I glued the ply base into the dingy that we had cut and I had kerfed earlier in the week. I ran a cove top and bottom. I often glass to coving wet on wet but in this case we will sand the coving and glass the entire outside and inside later.

With the soles in I can start on furniture in the hulls adjacent to the saloon but this area will need walls put in which will need to wait for the hull sides to go on. So in the meantime I will finish the sump lid for the port hull and finish the fitting of the starboard ensuite, I have the sump pumps and toilet so I will finish all of the plumbing (and wiring) so that I can move on. That will keep me busy over the Christmas break (the week between Christmas and New Year).

In case I dont get a chance to update again before Christmas, enjoy the time safely and thanks for reading.

I only managed a lame 55 hours this month. December and January have not been productive boat building months for me over the years. The heat combined with family commitments usually mean I miss weekends work which is when I get the bulk of the hours done. Anyway I still feel that I am progressing, however slowly and am happy with the way things are going. Happy New Year to all, thanks for reading.